Five things Carmen would have done growing up
by Shenandoah Risu
Summary: The two of them would share a very special bond. Carmen Johansen/ various Destiny crew members


**Title: Five things Carmen would have done growing up on Destiny  
>Author: Shenandoah Risu<br>Rating**: G  
><strong>Content Flags<strong>: none  
><strong>Spoilers<strong>: early Season 2  
><strong>Characters<strong>: Carmen Johansen, The Destiny Crew  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 717  
><strong>Summary<strong>: _The two of them would share a very special bond._  
><strong>Author's Notes<strong>: Written for prompt set #130 at the LJ Comm sg1_five_things.  
><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: I don't own SGU. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Now, Young... Young I'd know what to do with. ;-)  
><strong>Thanks for reading! Feedback = Love. ;-)<strong>

**oOo**

**Five things Carmen would have done growing up on Destiny**

Like every little kid, Carmen would have trouble teething. She would be whiny and cry a lot, as her little gums would hurt when her teeth broke through. But it would also be over within a relatively short time, and TJ would be grateful for that. She would learn to walk at just about the same time and hold her mommy's hand as they wandered slowly down one of Destiny's dark hallways. She would tumble and fall on occasion, and she would cry, and TJ would pick her up and comfort her, and soon she would smile again, her new teeth glinting in the faint light like four grains of rice, and everybody would take turns admiring them. Volker would devise a tiny toothbrush for her and she would love opening up wide so he could brush gently.

Everybody on the ship would fight over playing with the little girl, and she would never have trouble sleeping through the night, having been worn out by lots of physical activity all day long: airplane rides with Matt, tea parties with Chloe, playing catch with Vanessa, horsey rides on Rush's knees, hopscotch with Brody, patty cakes with Lisa or hide and go seek with Greer. But her favorite pastime would always be piggyback rides with Young. He would gallop down the corridors with her on his shoulder, ducking carefully through the hatches, and she would squeal in delight when he would toss her up in the air on the observation deck so she could pretend to be a spaceship, catching her safely, and then dashing off on another wild romp.

Carmen would be an extremely diligent student. She would never have proper lessons as such, but they all took turns taking care of her, and involving them in their activities became teaching opportunities by default. Eli would turn out to be the most fantastic tutor, teaching her to read and write and do basic math. After that her learning curve was exponential, and by the time she was a teenager she would have surpassed most of the scientists on board, having amassed all their combined knowledge, and starting her own research projects.

She would also learn to be a productive member of their little community, from KP duty since she was a toddler, to cleaning, welding, bookkeeping, hydroponics duties, maintenance and supplies acquisitions. She would soon show a strong tendency towards caring for others, learning compassion and nursing from her mother and leadership from her father. She would be particularly protective of all the new babies born after her, and in turn teach them what she had learned. And she would absolutely adore working out with Vanessa and getting gun maintenance and shooting lessons from her, training in self defense and hand-to-hand combat. She would pitch in wherever she could at a tender age, understanding quite well that everyone was needed, and everyone was important and had to contribute to their combined survival.

From her birth onwards it would be very obvious that Destiny took an interest in the little girl, and sometimes the adults would shake their heads when a console would beep and Carmen would drop whatever she was doing, go to the console, adjust a dial or type something in, laugh, and go back to work. She would never be able to fully explain to the others what she saw or heard in Destiny's signals to her – she would liken it to trying to describe colors to someone who, unlike Lisa, who still dreamed of them, had never seen colors. Destiny would be like a very large invisible friend to her, and the two of them would share a very special bond. TJ suspected it had something to do with the fact that Carmen was the first new life Destiny had ever observed from the very start, and had adopted her as her own, since she had started breathing within her. Carmen would always be able to interface with Destiny's AI, and before she reached her fourteenth birthday she would become Destiny's pilot, taking them to that unknown place beyond space and time that she could not communicate to her human family in a way they could comprehend, but that deep inside she would already know.

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End file.
